The Sun Sets in the West
by lannerz
Summary: Jaime Lannister returns to Casterly Rock one last time after the war is over in order to finish business with the person that matters the most.


**Author's Notes:** This was another request that I fulfilled. I'm actually don't ship Cersei/Jaime, despite the fact that it's totally and super canon, and is at least part of the reason for the whole war in the series. However, I do what I'm asked, like a nice person. This turned out better than expected.

**Disclaimer: **GRRM owns all of these characters and also my soul.

**The Sun Sets in the West**

The sun rose on Casterly Rock earlier than usual that day. He'd had no intentions of coming here during the day, but now that he was here, there was no avoiding it. Things had to be done, before he was sent off to the Wall.

He thought of the distant and faraway day when this all began for them, and, _the things we do for love, _and how he found it strange that the outcome would have been the same either way had he not done what he'd done. Maybe this was the price for their pride. They had risen too far, too fast, and it was their turn to fall. They had been on the rise for so long – it was a wonder if they remembered how to fall – but falling was something that came back to a person so naturally that it was like they had always been falling in the first place.

Jaime thought this was true. His fall had started the moment he had been born. He just hadn't known it until now.

"What are you doing here?"

The voice startled Jaime out of his reverie. He turned his gaze away from the rising sun on the sea and landed it on the woman of his dreams and nightmares. She stood before him, cold and angry, like the waves that crashed against the walls of the cliffs that bore this castle, in a simple green gown. The wealth that had once been was no more, and she seemed a picture of that fading wealth, still beautiful but vanishing from the world in every way.

"I came to see you before I went North," he told her, though it was a lie.

She knew it, glaring at him like he was nothing, and then turned on her heels to walk away. He hadn't wanted to see her (a lie, he always woke up with the regret of no longer being able to see her), but now that he had, he couldn't just let her walk away from him. That wasn't who he was – that wasn't who _they_ were. He caught up with her easily, grasping her by the wrist and jerking her so that she was facing him. The glare hadn't left her face, but tears had sprung in her bright green eyes like a creek.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered. "You should be dead."

"Well, I'm not, surprisingly enough."

Without warning, she slapped him with her free hand. "They're dead! They're _all_ dead – everyone and everything. And you remain japing like it is nothing!"

"What else is there left for me to do? I'm joining the Night's Watch. Does that not strike you as amusing?"

The tears would not escape her eyes – she wouldn't let them – but he knew that the moment he left her alone, they would find a way to cascade down her porcelain cheeks. He'd seen her cry before, but it was rare, not since they were innocent little children (_Have we ever been innocent?_) and even then it had been rare. They were twins, lovers, one soul, but still she held back from him. He had to wonder just all of what she'd hidden from him over the years. Tyrion's old words played in his head like a song, words he'd not thought of for three years, but they came rushing back to him.

"You said… You told me that you would kill them all. You _told_ me that only we would remain."

Jaime let go of her hand and dropped his to his side. "And I was right, wasn't I? We _are_ the only ones remaining."

"Not like this, not like…" She shook her head, her bright blond hair swaying in the wind. She looked like a weeping willow, her hair falling across her face to hide her grief. "They took our children, Jaime. They took e_verything_ and now _nothing_ remains."

_Were they ever really my children?_

"I am sorry, Cersei, I truly am."

"You should have been there!" she shouted at him, blind with rage and sorrow, blind with the pain of having everything ripped away from her in the end. "You were part of the Kingsguard. I wrote you to come back, and you never did! Where were you, Jaime? Why didn't you come back to King's Landing when I needed you the most? You should have been there to protect them and save them!"

Jaime smiled mirthlessly, sadly. "I was never a very good member of the Kingsguard, if you recall."

She growled at him, clenching her hands into fists and resisting the urge to slap him again, he could tell. She was the last lion left in Casterly Rock. Even he had grown tame as the war had raged on. Most people became wild and out of control – as she had – but he had grown quiet and tired. He would always be a lion, but he would be in shackles now, in the cage of the Night's Watch's vow. He was silently thankful of that.

"Get out. Leave." She looked away from him, refusing to meet his eyes or even glance at him. When he reached out for her, she pulled away from him almost violently. "I never want to see you again. I never want to hear from you again. I never want to _think_ or _dream_ of you again."

"A s you wish." Jaime brushed past her, meaning to leave, when he suddenly stopped. The words came to him unbidden and when he said them to her, his eyes locked on the woman he had loved the moment they had been born, he knew they would be the last words he ever spoke to her: "I might not be here and we might never see each other again, but I'll be with you until the day you die. You can't get rid of your reflection."

Her eyes shot up to him, but he'd already turned and walked out the door.


End file.
